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Friday,
June 21, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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7 ultras held for US Consulate bombing
Snag hits resumption of Pak flights over India USA delays supply of choppers to Pak |
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UK sold arms to India, Pak during standoff
Messages decoded on September 12 Pak appoints Qazi envoy to USA Israeli troops back in Ramallah
Graphic: Israel launches new West Bank offensive
Bangladesh gives list of 20 terrorists to India
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7 ultras held for US Consulate bombing
Karachi, June 20 The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the seven belonged to the Sunni Muslim extremist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group. They said the group had been known for attacks against Shiite Muslims, but the authorities suspected it might have expanded its targets to include foreigners because of anger over the US-led war against terrorism. The police said two of them - believed to be senior Lashkar-e-Jhangvi men - were detained several days ago and the others yesterday. A cache of explosives and weapons, including 90 Kalashnikov assault rifles, were confiscated in the second raid. None of the seven had been charged. However, the officials said the men were being questioned in connection with Friday’s blast at the US Consulate which killed 12 Pakistanis and wounded 50 persons, as well as the May 8 suicide bombing in front of a luxury hotel that killed 11 French engineers and three other people, including the bomber. The police said it was also trying to determine if the seven men were involved in the January kidnap-slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi. Four men were currently on trial in that case and the police was seeking seven others Islamabad: Confusion continues to shroud the joint investigation by the Pakistan police and FBI officials into the recent bomb blast outside the US Consulate in Karachi with the police speculating the possibility of an unidentified third vehicle’s involvement in the blast. Sindh Provincial police chief Syed Kamal Shah, who earlier ruled out the involvement of suicide bomber, has said that the police is examining the fragments of a third car which was blown up in the blast. “As earlier, I said in a recent press conference that a 1981 Toyota Corolla was blown up into 46 pieces and a Suzuki Hi-roof into 40 pieces. However, we are examining all fragments of the blown-up vehicles to ascertain the possibility of a third one,” he was quoted as saying by the local daily Dawn on Wednesday. Police teams were closely examining all aspects with technical assistance provided by the FBI, he said. A large team of FBI officials flew from Washington to assist the probe. Mr Shah said so far the police had not received any analytical report about which car was involved in the blast. The police initially suspected the involvement of a Suzuki van which was reported to have been driven by a suicide bomber. However, the investigators later found that a driving school car driven by a lady instructor and four women students too was destroyed in the blast killing all its inmates. The complete destruction of the car near the wall of the US Consulate made the police to suspect that the militants might have hidden the explosives in that car and blown it up with a remote-controlled device. According to the police, a number of people have been taken into custody for interrogation but no arrests have been made so far. The newspaper said FBI officials were examining the footage of the surveillance cameras which were installed at all sides of the US Consulate. However, no firm leads have been established so far. AP, PTI
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Snag hits resumption of Pak flights over India New Delhi, June 20 As airlines continue to suffer losses, the two governments pass the buck on to each other for restoring normalcy. Islamabad says the June 9 announcement revoking the ban on overflights by Pakistani aircraft is not enough and India should issue a formal notification. But New Delhi says if Pakistan wants to use Indian airspace, it should seek permission. “There is no need for a notem (notification). We never issued one in the first place,” Civil Aviation Minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain told IANS. “The revocation of the ban came into effect as soon as it was announced by the Ministry of External Affairs.” Hussain asserted that it was now up to the Pakistani authorities to seek permission to fly over India. “If they give us a flight plan then we will clear it. We don’t need to do anything else. End of the matter.” The Pakistan High Commission here reiterated the state-owned Pakistan International Airlines’ stand that the lifting of the ban should be formally notified to Islamabad by the Indian Civil Aviation Ministry or the International Civil Aviation Organisation. “Is the announcement by New Delhi a formal order?” questioned a Pakistani diplomat. “I don’t know what procedure was followed when the ban was imposed, but there should be some order.” Asked how soon he thought PIA would resume its flights over India, he replied: “I don’t have a crystal ball... it will take a little time.” The PIA, which has a fleet of 50 aircraft, had to suspend flights to New Delhi, Mumbai, Dhaka, Colombo, Singapore, Tokyo, Jakarta, Kathmandu and Kuala Lumpur. For Bangkok and Hong Kong, it re-routed its flights using Chinese airspace. “Both countries are losing out due to this rigid stance, but Pakistan is losing more because it has to fly over India for most of its Far East destinations,” said Subhash Goyal, chairman of a prominent business panel on tourism and travel. Goyal said the business communities in both countries were against the dragging conflict. Since New Delhi’s revocation of the ban does not include permission to land on Indian soil, PIA cannot resume its New Delhi-Lahore flights and also has to chart a long uninterrupted course over India. Before the curbs were announced, PIA had been operating 12 flights for New Delhi and Mumbai weekly. Thirteen flights used Indian airspace on ways to destinations in East Asia. Only its westbound flights were unaffected by the ban. India uses Pakistani airspace for some 120 flights a week, and the ban on Pakistani airspace had resulted in considerable losses in westbound flights.
IANS |
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USA delays supply of choppers to Pak
Islamabad, June 20 The delivery of five armed helicopters and three fixed wing planes by Washington under the $ 73-million free package to step up vigilance at Afghanistan’s borders has been delayed till next month for unknown reasons, Pakistan daily Dawn said today. It said the US authorities had cleared the decks by floating international tenders to deliver 150 motor cycles, four-wheelers and communication equipment but not the helicopters and planes, which, as per the earlier schedule should have arrived here this month. The US authorities had indicated that the much-needed equipment to check illegal movement across Pakistan’s western border would now reach here by mid-July, it said. US and Pakistani security forces were involved in tracking down Al-Qaida and Taliban militants along Pakistan’s western border. The agreement, involving a total amount of $ 73 million, was signed in Washington during a visit by Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider. The Pakistan Government, meanwhile, has ordered the Frontier Constabulary of the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan to prepare reports for setting up checkpoints on the border. Under the programme several border checkpoints at an estimated cost of $ 1 million each would be established all along the 2500-km-long border with Afghanistan, it said. PTI
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UK sold arms to India, Pak during standoff
London, June 20 “Whitehall sanctioned export licences in military equipment ranging from ammunition to missiles to both countries, according to parliamentary answers from Trade Minister Nigel Griffiths,” the Guardian newspaper reported today. Export licences covering more than 200 categories and specific types of equipment were issued for the two countries between December and May, which coincided with Indian troop mobilisation along the border with Pakistan after the December 13 attack on the Indian Parliament building. The Foreign Office and the Department of Trade and Industry, however, said the decisions on arms export licences were made on a case by case basis. PTI
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Messages
decoded on September 12 Washington, June 20 One of the messages intercepted by the agency on September 10 said “the big match” was scheduled for tomorrow. Another message called the next day “zero hour,” reports the New York Times. The newspaper said the agency analysts did not process, translate and review the intercepted Arabic message until the day after the attacks, and President Bush and other senior policy makers were not told of the possible warning until it was too late. The messages were from Afghanistan, and at least one suspected Al- Qaida operative has been tentatively identified as a participant, officials said. “Osama bin Laden was not involved in the intercepted discussions,” they added. The existence of the intercepted messages was first reported on the CNN. Initially, the analysts could not identify any of the participants in the discussions, the paper said, adding that they were still uncertain about some of the people involved.
UNI |
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Pak appoints Qazi envoy to USA
Islamabad, June 20 Pakistan’s Ambassador to China Riaz Hussain Khokhar has been appointed as new Foreign Secretary, a website of the Pakistan News Service said. He had been appointed in place of Inam ul Haq, who would assume the office of State Minister for Foreign affairs, it said. It said the new High Commissioner to New Delhi and ambassadors to some other countries would be announced soon. UNI
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Israeli
troops back in Ramallah Jerusalem, June 20 Just hours after the latest kamikaze strike, Israeli infantry units backed by armoured vehicles entered the Palestinian-controlled West Bank town of Bethlehem and the outskirts of Ramallah, witnesses said. Troops backed by some 60 tanks and armoured troop carriers and overflying helicopters, moved into Bethlehem from several directions, and took up positions in the centre of the town near the Church of the Nativity and Dheisheh refugee camp. Some 20 tanks and armoured personnel carriers entered the town of Bitunyia. Meanwhile, two Israeli soldiers were killed and four injured when they came under grenade and gunfire attack while searching for an alleged Palestinian militant in Qalqilyah, army sources said, adding that one suspected militant was killed in the exchange of fire.
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Bangladesh gives list of 20 terrorists to India Dhaka, June 20 Foreign Minister M Morshed Khan, just back from a tour of India and Pakistan, told reporters here that he had handed over to India a list of 18 to 20 Bangladeshi terrorists who had taken refuge in that country and given details of their whereabout in India. Mr Khan, who held talks with the Indian leadership after his visit to Islamabad, said he had told New Delhi the “sanctuary” of Bangladesh terrorists in India was an “impediment” in the development of relations between the two countries. He indicated there was no immediate prospect of Bangladesh offering land transit facility to India and of the start of Dhaka-Kolkata direct train service for which the two countries had signed an agreement last year. PTI
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Chowdhury resigns Dhaka, June
20
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